


The Tabernacle, Reconstructed

by beechee



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Low Chaos (Dishonored), M/M, Novelization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2018-10-09 08:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beechee/pseuds/beechee
Summary: If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the window is over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathing river water.(The last days of the infamous Knife in Dunwall.)





	1. Precursive

Look, murder for hire is a delicate art. Murder for hire using power granted by black magic spawned by a probably malevolent deity? Even moreso. So Daud means it when he says he's handled his fair share of tricky situations. None have left this sort of taste in his mouth before, though. He's taken with the idea of killing the Empress when he's first approached—him, the Knife of Dunwall, the Serkonan brat, the Outsider's no-longer-quite-Chosen, asked to shake the very foundations of a city that scorned everything he stood as a representative of? Cosmically perfect. He'd even wondered if Hiram Burrows' approach had been a sign of the Outsider's renewed interest—wondered, and not been sure how he would feel if it were. Months after the fact, he knows for a fact that he should have run when he’d had the chance.

He’s not a man naturally inclined to running, but he should have run when he’d had the chance.

There’s a difference between killing a woman and kidnapping a child, and his being the hand that strikes the blow that topples an Empire. When it’s late and he can’t sleep, he considers slipping into the royal stronghold again, considers the satisfying way the light would dull from the eyes of the man who had hired him to bring the entire part of the world that matters to its knees. When it’s late and he can’t sleep, he knows that it would bring him no closure. If he were just the faintest bit more self-aware, Daud would recognize that he’d never needed closure from a job before: the fat purses that landed in his hand had always been enough. Of course, in the assassination business, self-awareness is both highly lauded and highly avoided, and so his odd relationship with it means that he does not for a single second contemplate his own emotions beyond how they may impact a potential job, or his safety. And frankly, he’s been ignoring the screaming danger sense Lurk’s presence gives off for so long that it’s likely he’d not even note the danger if he cared to try.

A visit from the Outsider after years of silence, though?  _ That  _ gets his attention, and quick. He’s torn near insensate from a dream whose details are all too fleeting, and he finds himself standing over the corpse of the Empress. He knows better, he knows better, he knows he knows better, but he still bends to pick up the fallen letter that lies beside her head. Smoothing it open, he half wonders if it will simply be a reflection of a real letter, as these things frequently are. One glance at the bold letters torn across the paper puts that thought to rest quickly, though—YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER is not precisely the sort of letter that the Empress might receive. He crumples it up in a quiet sort of fury, stuffs it in the pocket of his coat rather than allow it to hit the ground where the Outsider could see the effect the simple bit of cruelty has on him. Turning to face the void, he has to resist the urge to roll his eyes, or scream, as the floating cobblestones snap into position to form an easy ascent. The message couldn’t be clearer: as ever, despite having been the one to demand Daud’s attention, the Outsider would not come to him. Pulling his sword makes him feel marginally better, hefting it in his palm gives him the clarity he requires to start up the path. The endless nothingness of the Void has long since lost its edge, and his path is nearly careless up the floating cobblestones.

Of course, it would kill the Outsider to make things simple, and so Daud stands at the lip of the cobblestones, staring at the overturned carriage with something akin to resignation seething in his skin. Experimentally, he takes a step over the edge of the cobblestones, and simply allows himself to plummet. He gets an estimated hundred feet before the Void warps around him, and he is simply back at the edge of the cobblestones. Still no Outsider. Sighing, he closes his eyes, and transverses to the top wheel of the thing. Then, it’s to the lip of a building, to the next window, to a courtyard he recognizes well. It’s not incidental that he is tracing backwards his path to the Empress’ murder, he doesn’t think. It’s just through the gate that he finally meets the Outsider—from the outset, Daud can feel his teeth grit. It’s not just the greeting, though the Abbey knows that Daud has little to no patience for the Outsider’s ways after such a prolonged and (in retrospect) blissful silence. It’s the way that the Outsider’s presence grates, that horrific anticipatory nails on chalkboard feeling that does it. The way it makes his skull feel about a dozen sizes too small for his brain, the way it almost feels  _ good _ after so long without it.

After a careful breath, Daud deigns to transfer his attention to the Outsider. Because the Outsider is some level of omnipotent, it chooses that exact moment to launch more fully into what it has to say. Its talk of friendship and gifts are almost something he can believe in; almost something he wants to believe in. That’s mainly what tips him off to the insincerity of it all. The Outsider isn’t in the business of giving people what they  _ want _ . And his hunch is confirmed when the Outsider offers him nothing but a name, like that’s any help at all, like the word  _ Delilah _ might mean more to him than death, destruction, deceit. He wakes from the void, if you can call his unceremonious eviction from sleep a waking. Terse, he gives the orders for his Whalers to suss out this Delilah, and sets the matter entirely from his mind.

The information doesn’t come at once, but life as the head of the most formidable group of assassins in Dunwall doesn’t exactly leave him too much time to fret over it. What time he doesn’t spend training his share of the newest promoted master assassins is spent on paperwork, and what’s not spent on paperwork is spent meeting with twitchy nobles who want to be  _ certain _ that their enemies meet untimely ends. He watches from his desk while his second in command trades quips with—that one’s Thomas, he thinks—Thomas, watches her thoroughly trounce him on the transversal combat grounds later that same afternoon, watches the newest recruits attempt their first transversals,  sits at the head of the long table that serves as the dining outpost for his master assassins, and lays in his bed long past when he should sleep, listening to the cat-quiet footsteps of his Whalers patrolling the roof.

Some nights, he’s joined by Lurk for a game of cards, and they play for hours in the middle of the room where he’d taught her how to transverse, back when the Whalers were small enough that he could justify teaching the basics, and they garner a crowd that in other times might have made Daud hiss displeasure—with a crowd the size cards gathers, there’s no way in the Void every patrol route is manned, but after he’d sent a handful of Whalers out red eared with embarrassment from the castigation in his tone at their folly in leaving their routes, one of his Whalers—the former Overseer, the only one who’d made it past the obviously heretical nature of what the Whalers  _ are _ —had brought back a handful of Abbey hounds, and kennelled them at points strategically sound enough that Daud had let the matter lie, providing the dogs were cared for on off time only. He’d been unsurprised, weeks later, to find that Willem had been the one to suggest the kennel spots.

He had, however, promoted the Whaler on the spot.

Literally.

The benefits of the arcane bond are hard to deny: Willem had appeared with a soapy plate in one hand, and a dishwashing rag in the other. And Daud had never been above using people’s tendency to hit the back foot when taken by surprise. Willem had latrine duty for a week, and training starting at fourth bell for three before Daud actually told him he’d been promoted.

Cards are good for morale, which is why Daud doesn’t mind indulging the security risk, but they aren’t the sum total of how he spends his evenings, not by a long shot.

Practicals mean he spends two or three nights a week out in the cold and misery of Gristol, attempting to trip up his own men in their missions, paperwork means he strains his eyes until a headache claims his abilities to concentrate for its own nearly as often. At most, that leaves him three nights in which to go out himself and execute one of the more complicated hits, or to rest, or to hunt for runes in a city he’s certain he’d long since sucked dry: without the Outsider’s oh-so-helpful interference, rune appearance had plummeted. He focuses on not focusing on the Outsider while he waits, tries not to condemn himself for how hard it is; certainly, the degree to which his younger self had shaped himself around the Outsider’s interest seems in retrospect a folly, but he owes everything that he has to the Outsider, even if the thought leaves a taste like ashes and his mother’s favourite poisons in his mouth.

Sometimes, when the paperwork threatens to blur into total incomprehensibility in front of his very eyes, he practices reading the lips of whichever of the three Whalers who’ve taken it upon themselves to guard his door turn away visitors. It's while he's doing just that that he chances upon a golden exchange—he's been poring over a map of the rooftops surrounding Bunting's home, in anticipation of a hit placed by the Pendleton twins, and if he has to see it again on paper before in person, he thinks he may kill the man from sheer spite, and forget the gold that could come of patience.

Thomas is the one outside his door, and it's one of the newer initiates who transverses to the hall outside Daud's door: the transversal is sloppy, and the Void lingers for seconds longer than it should. "Thomas," the initiate—Caden?—says, rushed. "I need to speak to Dad, he's put me on patr—" ce doesn't even note cir mistake until several words past, and then ce breaks off mid word, buries cir masked face in her gloved hands, and cries, plaintively, "Why does his name have to be so close?" Thomas undoubtedly replies, but Daud's got his own head in his hands, trying desperately not to laugh, and so he misses it. Not a half hour later, Lurk transverses in, smugness undeniable in her posture. "Daud," she says, "I've scheduled Caden and the Overseer for patrol together. If they both survive, I think we should promote him. Maybe even if ce doesn't."

Three jobs go off without any of Daud's people taking so much as a scratch, and then Aaron ends up in the infirmary with River Krust burns. Daud reads over the report, and then reassigns the boy. His partner is failing to temper him, which means he'll need someone with a touch more subtlety—Daud stares down the list of free Whalers for a solid bell before he gives up and simply swaps partners so to match Aaron with Renard. Daud isn’t dumb enough to think that it’ll be an entirely peaceful match, but he knows that Renard is both mean and sharp enough to be able to handle Aaron’s temper when it flares, and hopefully distrustful enough not to endear himself to the boy too much, to avoid a repeat of the River Krust incident.

Things continue along those lines for nearly three weeks, and each second of it grates, deeply unpleasant and completely impossible to ignore. He sleeps poorly, feels the gulf between himself and the rest of his Whalers even more keenly than usual, and doesn’t speak to Lurk at all. That last doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t bother him.

It doesn’t bother him.

It doesn’t bother him so much that he throws Thomas out of his office over it, reorganizes every single file that’s been lying around for as long as he’s had an office to pile it in, and reads three books in the time he’d usually spend tossing barbed compliments back and forth with her, or even just mutually appreciating the silence.

He and Lurk have had a mutually beneficial agreement for six of the eight years they’ve known each other, and while Daud would like to say that he is a person entirely untethered, that. Would probably be a lie. He’d found some measure of peace in his existence in Dunwall, a rhythm, if you would. Lurk had integrated near seamlessly into almost every aspect of it, and she’d done it slow; Daud nearly hadn’t noted it until it’d stopped. He’s not blind, not even when he it comes to introspection, and he knows that the Empress’ death had hurt him, knows that the impact had shaken and ripped through him to reverberate into anyone close enough to feel it, knows that Lurk had been the  _ definition  _ of close enough to feel it. He’s nothing if not confident in his ability to mend the tears, though. It’s simply difficult to accomplish when she won’t be in the same room alone with him. 


	2. Questioning

In the end, it’s Lurk who ferrets out a connection to the name the Outsider has given them as direction. Of course it is. The brightest and most savage of any Daud has granted the extension of his abilities to, she is a weapon who has lent herself fully to forging. Lurk has demanded the best from the moment she’d trailed him to his headquarters: she’s just lucky that he _is_ the best. And in fairness, his standards are no lower than her own, not for her. She’s built on secrets, those imparted to her by her time in the slums, those given to her by life training under Daud, those she digs out and hoards jealously from sources unknown. Of course she’s the one who brings the firsts scenting of this Delilah to him. As a reward, as a punishment, as some sort of twisting winding way to find comfort in his surroundings, Daud doesn’t break off after “Good.”

No, instead Daud continues “You’ll come.”

He wishes he could say he’d relished the look on Lurk’s face, but between the mild startlement at himself and the fact that on duty, Lurk would rather die than take off her mask, he’d not really been left with much more than the usual “Yes, sir.” to content himself with. Perhaps it is not smart to remove both the head of the Whalers and his lieutenant at once, but Daud built them to be self sufficient, to run for months and months with only the most basic interference by Daud himself: it would be detrimental, but they’d survive. A matter of a few hours would be nothing. For years, he’s held together his band of assassins with spit (his), desperation (theirs), and black magic (the Outsider’s): he’s the devil they know, and while he wouldn’t expect a single one (or okay, more than a half dozen) of his Whalers to lift a finger to support him against an inside job, he also wouldn’t expect a betrayal for as long as he maintains strength. He’s not worried about leaving the bulk of them to go about their work. If he were, he’d deserve what came of it.

The lead she brings him is to one Bundry Rothwild: a deckhand turned despot lording over Rothwild Slaughterhouse with an iron fist. There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that the Rothwild laborers are on strike, which has thrown the place into disarray. The bad news is that the Rothwild laborers are on strike, which has thrown the place into disarray. Lurk arrives first, because Daud finds himself pausing on his way to the slaughterhouse in order to give a few last second instructions to Thomas. Thomas is Lurk’s provisional second in command, which really means that he is Daud’s third, and he’s solid enough. Daud’s decided he can be used: the Whalers are ever-expanding with every night they spend anywhere mildly identifiable, and while the Outsider’s power stretches easily enough, Daud’s memory doesn’t always, and while Lurk’s position as his second in command means near half the responsibility is hers, not even Lurk can keep straight the combined secrets of half the Whalers well enough to designate teams and chore rotas. Thomas will be invaluable—a third each is more than twice again as reasonable. He’s yet to actually _tell_ Thomas this, of course, because it might make the poor man keel over, but he thinks Thomas is getting the message anyway, if the way he jumps whenever Daud looks at him is any indication.

She’s scoping out the streets when he finally transverses over, tucked carefully up out of sight and leaning just the tiniest bit forward for a better vantage point. She’s here to accompany him, not aid him, no matter what she may say, and so he sees naught of her for the next hazardous hour or so.

All right, so it’s not a very hazardous hour or so. Daud has been a practitioner of black magic for most of his remembered life—he’s nothing if not handy with it. He transverses up ledges and drops down off them, ducks through doorways and peers out windows, and when he finds a painting of the late Empress on the side of a building, he nods to it. It’s a complicated mix of guilt and pride that the woman’s face sparks up inside him, and though he knows looking to be futile, he glances around to ensure that Lurk hasn’t chanced upon the moment. He moves on quickly, and with a minimum of remorse.

(He piles up the unconscious guards on the mattress facing the Empress’ likeness, either because he thinks it’s funny or for an excuse to return and study the likeness.)

It’s more habit than any true need that sees him diverting through the Watch’s outpost in the neighbourhood: by now it is a long trek back to the mattress and it’s nearly not worth it, for all the efficacy the Watch can’t call to bear. Still. Once the place is clear, he blinks across the street to the whale oil tank, yanks it out, leans it up against the mass of humanity in front of the Empress’ distant gaze. He transverses back to the next guard nearly with his eyes closed, after how many times he’s taken the trip. It’s child’s play to empty a slaughterhouse yard after years as the best around, especially considering that they not one are prepared to defend against a full scale incursion made by one of his level of ability. He’s not above bragging about the fact that he is near peerless—and between the average quality of the recruits to the City Watch, not to mention the outright laughable butchers who patrol as though they could even dream of standing in his way, well—let’s just say that Lurk may be wondering if this were a punishment after all.

He’d paid for a timecard into the Slaughterhouse, and he diverts to pick up the code for the safe, leans out the window on Lurk’s assertion that someone on the river looks nearly as shifty as they do, and shoots the man in the face with a sleeping dart from his vantage point. More shifty folk just means more variables for (the Outsider) luck to fuck them over with. He knows. He’s had that experience before.

(Not many survive the express displeasure of the Outsider. Daud’s not sure he could do it again.)

He spins open the safe with casual disdain, loots the outpost as thoroughly as he’s ever looted anywhere (he may pay for turncoats, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t harbour disdain for traitors who can be _bought_ . Betrayal for ambition? Fine. He’s done worse himself. Betrayal for _coin_?) and heads back out towards the door of the Slaughterhouse. He pauses when he passes the caged laborers, though—Void only knows why, but he feels nearly compelled to backtrack to them. Maybe it’s the key he’d pocketed off one of the tables in the breakroom, already here and easy enough to use. Maybe it’s the swift crushed memory of what the Empress had looked like slipping off his blade. Maybe he just doesn’t want any witnesses around to see him actually entering the slaughterhouse. Void knows and Void cares—either way, the path out of the Slaughterhouse’s district is clear thanks to the lingering paranoia that is the reason he’s survived the underworld of Gristol this long, and it’s not hard for them to slip out and away. He tucks the extra timecard into his breast pocket, and gives the yard one last sweep with his Void gaze before transversing to the door and letting himself in. There’s a loading zone between the outer and inner sections of the Slaughterhouse, and Daud feels the electric tang of Void magic against his tongue seconds before Lurk appears, kneeling, head craned awkwardly to make eye contact through the plastic of her gas mask.

Turns out that despite the strike, the Slaughterhouse is crawling with butchers. Daud glances at the fourteen sleep darts he has remaining, and creeps through the open space of the butcher's floor to shelter behind a train cart, hops up with casual ease, and drags himself with just a little less flair the remainder of the way to the first of the storage levels of the slaughterhouse. Void gaze indicates a rune near at the roof of the place, and Daud grits his teeth against the difficulty of not moving towards it. One last gift, had the Outsider given him? Fine. One last gift it would be.

He clears two of the slaughterhouse sections before he cracks and goes back for the rune. He curses the Outsider the entire way up to it, pockets it with consummate bad grace. Lurk transverses in to inform him that he’d forgotten to order the rune found in the slaughterhouse left out for him, so she’d taken the initiative, and she nearly flinches away from the force of his scowl. Not that she has long to take it in before he’s transversing in the rune’s direction. When he sees the whale hanging live and crooning abject misery, he feels a shard of fury straight to his gut. The name The Whalers had been chosen half to spite the absent god and half to invoke the imagery of a whale on the hunt in the hearts of their opponents, but his affinity for the creatures has grown over the years, and when Lurk murmurs that she might want to put the thing out of its misery, what had been near directionless anger dilutes into purpose.

He cannot save the whale.

He can put it out of its agony.

He is perhaps a little vicious in his takedowns of the three remaining floor workers, but they keep their lives—why, he couldn’t say, but he carefully piles them out of sight just as he has with every other hostile encountered since leaving the flooded district and moves to a table where there is now and had not been prior another rune—he accepts it gingerly, clicks it into his pockets with the other two, and reads the instructions on the proper electrocution of whales. “Lurk,” he snaps, “get me two whale oil tanks.”

He doesn’t worry about whether or not she can hear him. She can always hear him. Soon enough, two whale oil tanks are deposited next to him, and he plugs them in without hesitation, climbs his way up to the switch, and with a brief hesitation to apologize, throws it. Transversing away feels nearly unfair, but he’s here for a reason; he takes out the remaining conscious workers with his purpose in mind, and steps into Rothwild’s study with the necessary thought for stopping time already on the forefront of his mind. Forcing his will outward is much easier than it had been when he’d first learned the skill—he’s had to impart enough of his will to his Whalers that he’s old hat at making things so, and Rothwild and this Ames girl freeze mid word. Leisurely, lazily, he raises his crossbow, fires off first one bolt, then the next. Letting the world snap back into movement, he steps briskly towards the collapsing duo and bends to pick up first Ames, depositing her easily on Rothwild’s desk and out of reach of any vermin who might scuttle through, and then it’s back for Rothwild himself.

Now, Daud isn’t particularly a fan of torture. It’s not that he has a queasy stomach or anything, more—an encounter with the Outsider, years before he’d ever even thought of assassinating the Empress flashes to mind, disdain dripping from the void’s voice as he says “Torture is such an uninspired method of getting to the truth of things, don’t you think.” with his eyes glued to the panting restrained man in front off a much younger Daud—no. Why he doesn’t like torture is unimportant, because here and now he hardly cares about his preferences in face of his search for the meaning of the word _Delilah_ . He can’t abide mysteries, not after so long in the Outsider’s focus. Mysteries are why the Outsider’s attention was free for Daud to snag in the first place, though the boy knelt snarling in front of a pagan shrine that he _deserves the God’s attention_ would try to see him dead for claiming so. Daud’s too old to lie to himself any more. He knows just how fickle the Outsider’s attention can be, and how difficult it can be to re-attract it once it’s faded. Mysteries are something he’s avoided since the moment he learnt their disastrous consequences for the Outsider’s favourites.

He knows that even now he’s driving into disaster at a headlong sprint, courting ruin the way Vera Moray courts the black-eyed bastard, chanting its name around arcane deeds and desperately scratched symbols. He’s too smart for this, yet here he stands, unable to abide a simple mystery.

Lurk locks the meat locker on her way out. What good she thinks that will do is anyone’s guess, so Daud dismisses it, choosing instead to lean against a wall, watch Rothwild swim his way back to consciousness upstream through heavy sedatives. When it takes too long, he flips the switch on the electric chair, and _that_ wakes the man up.

(Okay, so he’s not over the whale. Want to make something of it?)

Past the usual _who are you_ and _what do you want_ and _do you know who I am_ s, Daud cuts in with “Delilah. Tell me about the ship, Delilah.” Ratgnawed courage darkens into hatred in Rothwild’s eyes, and Daud is nearly flipping the switch already when the man spits “You think I’ll just give it up on the first tickle?” It’s not the first time that Daud has heard that torture is what is victims pay his sister for, but. Considering he doesn’t have a sister, it always tends to fall just the faintest bit flat. Rothwild grunts. Daud doesn’t flinch. After he’s been allowed to regain his composure, Rothwild puts on a facade of politeness,  punctured only by the odd _what do you care_ and _piss off_. As it turns out, that’s not enough information. Nor is it enough cruelty to make Daud feel better about the whale.

He flips the switch again. He’s not entirely sorry about it, either. This time Rothwild screams. It’s satisfying, in the same tooth-itching maddening way that the void’s music is, and when Rothwild spits “ _Barrister Timsch,_ all right?” after being prompted again, Daud is almost disappointed. He lets go of the lever almost with regret, crosses his arms in front of himself, and listens to the man babble. Say what you will about torture being _boring_. It’s effective. The details that unfold as Rothwild blithers don’t do much to clear up the mystery of Delilah’s importance, but they certainly do give him somewhere to go from here. When Rothwild’s done talking, Daud pulls Lurk back in and tells her that it’s time to go—before she can ask if he wants Rothwild dead, the butt of his sword takes the man in the head.

“I’m going to pack him up in his own void-taken crate,” he spits in his own turn, knows that the restraint not massacring the man is taking shows on his face. Lurk looks like she might doubt, but luckily she does not linger, and so Daud doesn’t need to run her through to make himself feel better. His ire fades by the time he’s done pounding the nails into the lid of Rothwild’s mystery crate, and he leaves the slaughterhouse like he can’t wait to dust his hands of the place. Lurk’s not waiting for him outside, and from the moment he steps foot in the yard, he feels the telltale grinding pain in his head and his chest that means only one thing: Overseers. Spitting a curse under his breath, Daud transverses up to a rooftop, feels the grating intensify, and sinks into a crouch, glancing around the corner. Below, Lurk curls with her hands protectively over her ears, illuminated by a spotlight and taking the full force of a music box to the face. He’s reaching for a cannister of choke dust before he even really registers what he’s seeing, shouts “Lurk!” the moment it impacts.

The Overseer doubles over with the contact, and Lurk is up the moment he stops cranking the wheel on his infernal music device. Daud wastes not a second in transversing to the edge of the Overseer’s device, landing on the rooftop just beside Lurk. Her thanks are as brusque as they may be heartfelt, and the two of them are off again in a heartbeat, spurred on by the possible arrival of Overseer hounds. They’ve got a few of those tied up back in the flooded district, courtesy of an Overseer turned Whaler who didn’t appreciate leaving behind his pups, but that doesn’t mean they want to tangle with unbroken hounds.

Once they’ve reached safety, Daud sighs, rolls his shoulders. Carrying bodies isn’t easy on your own body, and supernatural strength or not, he’s going to be feeling it in the shoulders for quite some time. Lurk is looking at him, so he gestures for her to speak her mind, and from where her arms are crossed across her chest, she gestures in her own turn, says “I’m still trying to figure out why you let the Empress’ bodyguard go,” and Daud has a reply ready for her even before she’s finished speaking, but she steamrolls on, “and now Rothwild’s snug in a box. What’s gotten into you?” It’s fine, though, because Lurk doesn’t need to understand to follow orders. Which he informs her, perhaps a bit snappier than he’d intended, because she comments “So the torture wasn’t what you were hoping for, then, was it.” and barrels right into telling him about Timsh. Which is all he needs, really. It doesn’t matter if she doubts. It doesn't _matter_ if she doubts.


	3. Reconnaissance

After their return to the flooded district, orders go out for information on barrister Timsh. It doesn’t take long, and one more day, one more set of (hopefully terrifying) instructions left for Thomas and Daud is headed out again, Lurk falling in at his side as if there had been no question to her accompaniment on the mission. If they could call a job on which no payment was received a  _ mission _ . The good news is that they’ve been looking at Timsh for quite some time—they’ll likely be able to collect  _ some _ kind of recompense. The Timsh family is schisming—a question of inheritance, and one of the lovely young women is willing to trade her uncle's secrets to see him gone. Step one is finding and rendezvousing with her, which shouldn't be too hard. She's past a guard post and a wall of light, but Daud has been doing this a long time, even if walls of light are new. He transverses up, up, and further up, until he’s perched atop the wall, throws himself into space and makes another transversal just as he hits the apex of his jump, landing safely out of sight of the guardsmen patrolling. It’s too much to ask for Thalia to be unharmed, though, and when he peers around the corner, his suspicions about his luck are confirmed: there’s a bodyguard lying dead on the street, and a woman who looks suspiciously like Thalia Timsh being interrogated by a few members of the bottle street gang. 

Sighing, Daud leans ‘round the corner and forces his will outward, freezing the tableau in place. Slowly, and with a maximum of irritation, Daud shoots sleep darts at all three men. He relaxes his grip on the flow of time just enough to watch the darts fly in slow motion, and then transverses in to catch and remove all three before things snap back to normal speed. Thalia is, predictably, shaken. Folk tend to hire Daud and his Whalers without pausing to figure out if they’re all right with the black magic aspect of things. Thankfully, she neither shrieks (which would attract the attention of the guards) nor runs (which would attract the attention of Daud’s crossbow), It wouldn’t have been the first time a mission plan needed updating on the run, but Daud really does prefer it when things go as according to plan as they possibly could. Turns out this Thalia wants her uncle dead, and the will brought to her. Simple enough. She says she’s going to wait for him by the docks, and though he’s unsure as to how she plans on getting past the guards to meet him there, he agrees easily. That’s her headache. Not his.

Getting into the locked legal district, though, that’s his headache, one hundred percent of the way. And that means waltzing into a guard station manned by ten or more city watch members. Not impossible, not for he who murdered the Empress in her own tower and got away without a single scratch, but not necessarily something he’d send a novice Whaler to deal with. He scouts the area before he moves in, chooses an utterly inaccessible room at the apex of a building across and down the street a ways, and plots his path down and through the precisely arrayed and patrolling members of the City Watch. Vaulting over the railing he transverses mid-plunge to land gently in a crouch behind the first officer, lunging up to wrap an arm around the man’s throat, hand coming up to pull the wrist of that arm punishingly tight. Fingers claw ineffectively at his coat-sleeve for a few moments, before the man gives up. Which really is for the better. Hoisting him over his shoulder, Daud transverses back up and out to the room, slings him down onto the ragged mattress and hopes idly that the Voidsong of the bone charm he’s yet to pick up gives the man nightmares. 

He repeats this process no less than four times. He’d gotten the information he’d needed after the second man, but see, there’s a certain satisfaction that comes with looting an outpost. One he’s loathe to deny himself. 

Transversing back towards Hatter territory with a stolen loaf of bread in hand, he all but swans through the Hatters’ building, choking out one, two, three, and then a fourth Hatter without dropping his bread. Elixir on an empty stomach is for desperate times, and a foray into Hatter territory is most decidedly  _ not _ desperate. On his way back out of the Hatter’s den, Daud tears the remainder of the loaf in half, and leaves one portion on the roof, shooting a grin into the empty space. He transverses away nearly before the expression has hit the air. The key for the legal district swings easily from his keyring, swathed by and separated from the others by a muffling coat of velvet, and he moves without fear of noise. Down the street and to the left is the door that locks off the lawyers from the peons. There’s a squad of guardsmen camped in front of it, and another down the alley that crabs off to the side of the main approach—he glances briefly at the sleeping darts he has left—all fifteen, and then at his gloved hand—then a wolfish grin spreads ‘cross his face, and the roof on which he’d crouched is empty. 

Lurk has breadcrumbs on her jacket the next time he gestures his need of her. This time, Daud doesn’t flash his smile for any to see, keeps it buried deep in his chest with a lingering self-satisfaction instead. Gesturing peremptorily, he says “Scout ahead. Try to find out where Timsh is.” Rather than nodding assent and transversing away, Lurk says “There’s an equipment stash on the rooftops nearby. We’ve been anticipating doing a hit on Timsh for some time.” Daud nods. Were she a novice, or perhaps even a different master, she might have been reprimanded for the  failure to comply at once: because she is who she is, Daud simply replies “I know. Half the city wants him dead. We’ll earn some gold on this one.” Then, in case she cannot read the implicit dismissal, he says “I’ll meet you up ahead.” As though Lurk knows that this is as far as being second in command will allow her to push, her hand raises to her chest in acknowledgement, and she makes at a run for the mouth of the alley, transverses away mid stride. 

He knows she’s done it to remind him how well he trained her: Lurk’s preferred method of transversing involves hurling herself either off of whatever she perches on, or into the air before she allows the Outsider’s Void magic to pluck her from one place and deposit her in the next. He’s seen her do it a million times—by now, he’s seen the Whalers she’s trained do it a million times, as well. It’s an almost heavy handed subtlety, and a fond smile tugs at Daud’s lips, before he banishes it, returning his thoughts to the job at hand. A quick sweep of the alley reveals a bone charm in the upper levels of the house to his right. Displaying some of the flair that Lurk has for the past eight years, Daud launches himself straight up in the air, as far as the Void will let him push, then pictures himself perched atop the railing of the wrought iron balcony jutting from the side of the building. It materializes under his feet (or really, he materializes on top of it) and he hops down, eases the door open with careful hands, and makes his way inside, towards the charm.

Far be it from him to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Glancing around the room in case there’s anything else he can pick up, Daud is pleased to note the form of a man bent over a table. 

He’s had many years to note the appearance of defeat, and the man’s shoulders fair scream of it. A warmth curls in his chest, cruel and unforgiving, and he near saunters to where the floor has caved in and lets himself down to confront the man. If the Outsider’s attention is elsewhere, he may just have information Daud can use. The man fair jerks back from the long table, but his expression is unreadable. Not because it’s placid—because it’s hidden behind a mask. Nobility and their  _ masks _ . Nearly as soon as he’s straightened, the noble says “It’s Daud, isn’t it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer as Daud straightens from his crouch. “You wouldn’t be in this district unless you were after Timsh’s head.” He pauses, delicate, and Daud asks “What do you want.” It’s his best warning tone, one hundred percent pure leashed irritation. 

Unfortunately, the nobility is as stupid as it is profligate, and the man doesn’t even check himself. “Revenge. To do to Timsh what he did to me. I want him homeless, a victim of one of his own eviction documents. I’ve prepared one. Complete with the forged signature of the Lord Regent. Please, go to my old apartment. It’s right next to Timsh’s estate. Here’s the address, but I doubt you can get inside from the streets. There you’ll find my journal, which contains the entire plot, and everything you’ll need. But you’re a businessman, like I was. I don’t expect you to do this for free.” The man’s voice speeds up, with what Daud’s guessing are nerves. “If you  _ do _ go to my apartment, you’ll—find  _ something _ stashed there. Consider it your payment in advance.”  

The man walks away, like there’s anywhere he can go if he’s victim to an eviction, and for a brief moment Daud considers leaving him dead on the ground just for the satisfaction of the thing. 

Then, professionalism kicks back in, and he simply transverses away.

The apartment isn’t even six transversals away, and Daud hauls himself inside through a window overlooking the rooftops with contemptuous ease. These places are never as secure as their owners think they are. He’s taken great pains to make certain not to commit the same errors as they in the flooded district. He pages through the journal, collects the key and the eviction notice, knocks over the painting that conceals a rune, of all things, and then it’s off to pick up the bag of Weeper rot from apartment ten.  _ Weeper rot _ . 

There are four corpses littering the front room of apartment ten. Next to each is a scrap of paper, detailing things a person should not know. Daud reads each one, because the moment he lays eyes on the corpses, his gums start up the familiar ache of being near Outsider-wrought objects. He tucks each scrap into a pocket. He will deny doing so to his dying day. Glancing around shows him a suspicious bag of fabric, but the itch has spread to his teeth and the top of his tongue, too, like numbness, like nothing. Like  _ Void _ . He leans into it, and sure enough the back room lights up like a full whale oil canister in his vision. Quickly, he rubs his eyes and dismisses the voidsight before he can blind himself, then heads on light feet towards what he suspects is a Shrine. A bookshelf blocks the way, but Daud’s breath is catching in his chest at how near the Shrine is, and the itch has spread as far as his  _ fingers _ . The familiar purple glow of lantern light spills into the still apartment, and Daud hates himself a bit for how welcome it is. 

He’d thought he was better than this.

The trembling in his hands as he approaches the Shrine tells him he’s not. 

Lurk chooses exactly the wrong time to check up on him, and nearly pays for it with her life. She’s staring at the shrine as the Void pulls back from around her, and speaks nearly as soon as her feet have touched ground. “I’ve always wondered. What does He smell like?” Daud can hear the capital H in her voice, and he rolls his shoulders like she hasn’t been with him for eight years and aware of that irritated tell for six and a half. She continues, regardless. “Rotting flesh, wildflowers? Does He ask you questions? I wonder when He’ll speak to me.” 

She doesn’t want the Outsider to speak to her. She wouldn’t, if she knew what it entailed. He pushes past her, silent, and the stench of rotting flesh and wildflowers fills his nose, a blatant taunt. He takes the rune laid out atop the altar with perhaps slightly more force than necessary, and the Outsider’s voice fills his ears even before he’s entirely gotten a grip on the thing. “Here’s one last lesson, for old time’s sake. The Barrister was a champion at finding his enemies’ weak points, but he didn’t see Delilah as a threat, until it was too late. No one is watching Delilah now except for you—and me, of course. I see everything. I see forever.” And because that wasn’t enough, because the Outsider cannot appear to Daud without twisting the knife, he continues: “And right now, I see a man walking a tightrope over a sea of blood and filth. The Empress is dead, and the water’s rising.” He gives up on his smug tone, allows irritation to bleed into his voice. Daud would find it satisfying, if it wasn’t also terrifying, hateful, horrific. “You’ve got Rothwild packed into a crate bound for the frozen north, Daud.” He grits his teeth against the sound of his name in the Outsider’s voice, fights to keep his attention on the monologue. Sometimes, the Outsider’s preferred game is passing along absolutely vital information in the midst of hateful opinion. And Daud doesn’t plan on dying today. “Surprisingly clean work for a man with so much blood on his hands. Did the Empress change you? Or do you think this will help you dodge what’s coming. You’d better hurry. You’re running out of rope.”

Reality washes back over Daud with those last few words, and Lurk’s breath is harsh in his ears. For that matter, so is his own; he is suddenly, achingly aware of the twinges in his shoulders and the way the scar on his faces aches. When it becomes clear that he will not speak first, Lurk says “You were in a daze. I hope it was enlightening.”

She leaves, before he can make his displeasure felt. It’s probably for the best, because Daud needs a moment or two to collect himself. Years without the Outsider’s regular presence had dulled Daud’s memories—he can’t decide if that had been a curse, or a blessing. Either way, he has to scrub the feeling out of himself before he can continue his job, he knows that. Slipping into one of the chairs that lines a table standing centrepiece to the room just off the Shrine’s, his elbows hit the table at nearly the same moment as his face hits his hands. Dealing with the Outsider was once something he had been proficient at—knowing what to say and how to say it had been his specialty, and he’d kept the God at his side for longer than (his folly suggests) any other. Of course, the fallout when the Outsider had decided this was no longer acceptable had been… an experience, but Daud finds himself grasping now for the understanding that had been near intuitive to his younger self. It’s not an easy thing, and eventually he settles for scrubbing his hands over his eyes, and allowing himself a moment to feel his years. 

Then, it’s straight back out and towards the outpost where Lurk waits (as he’d  _ originally ordered _ , he thinks, and marks to have words with her after the completion of the mission) for him. He stoops to refill his pouch of sleep darts, takes an elixir, skims the notes his sentries have taken on Timsh, and leaves the rest, moving to the lip of the roof where Lurk crouches to join her. He is terse, and so is she, but the necessary information is passed, and then he’s letting himself into the top floor of Timsh’s building, clinging carefully to a chandelier he perches on. There are three guards on the top floor, plus a maid, and Timsh himself. Only the three guards look to be in any position to move. With a quick burst of frozen time and three well placed sleep darts, Daud ensures he will have all the time he needs to investigate. The familiar Void call grates against his ears as he collects all three guards, and despite himself, he cracks open the door that the song seeps out from under and lets himself in.

There’s a statue in the corner lit up lemon-bright with the telltale signs of consciousness against paler Void-sick yellow.

It’s probably not even the strangest thing Daud’s seen this week. 

Slinging all three of the guards up where no rats should be able to get to them (because Daud may be directly opposed to every guardsmen he meets, but he by no means wishes plague on them) and sweeping a Void charged glance towards where Timsh and the maid remain—occupied, so he straightens from his crouch, and addresses the statue directly. 

A lifetime of serving the Outsider’s interest has inured him against speaking to strange objects. “Who are you,” falls from his lips naturally. The statue loses plaster as it replies. “I understand your curiosity.”

Well. That’s not good.

It continues. “I’m strange. I was a baker’s apprentice in Dunwall tower, a friend to Jessamine when we were girls. Then afterward, I made my name as a painter. Now, I am obviously something much greater. I hope that satisfies you, because you  _ won’t _ get more. I ought to just kill you, but I’m going to give you a warning, for the sake of my sisters. They were  _ very _ impressed with you, once upon a time.  _ Stay away  _ from me. There are great changes coming, and I’ll expect you not to interfere. I have influence in places you won’t expect. But as for Arnold Timsh? Do what you want. I won’t hold a grudge. I’m done with him.” 

She seems done talking, which is a good thing—Daud figures his hackles are about as raised as it’s possible for them to be. Void knows, the grating runesong hardly helps. 

Silence (for a given value of the word) has barely fallen upon the room it’s shattered by the whipping sound of Lurk’s arrival. “Is that who you were looking for?” Lurk asks. It’s not a real question, either because Lurk knows him well enough that the answer is obvious, or because she knows she won’t get one. “Well, she’s a bit of a bitch. And the artwork’s hopeless. I know you have your reasons.” She’s gone as quick as she’d appeared, and Daud feels an ease settle his shoulders. Lurk has long since made a habit of appearing on any hits he allows her to shadow whenever she felt his pride had been impugned. Each time, she’d contribute a disparaging comment, and vanish before she could be berated for breaking focus. It’s an old call and response—or really, an old call, but it ensures Daud’s comfort. 

Moving to the stand atop which the Outsider’s rune sits, Daud takes the thing, tucks it in with the others he’s collected in this portion of the city, and returns to the hallway, pausing to peer through the keyhole and ensure that Timsh is still every bit as occupied as he’s been the entire time Daud has been in his home. He can’t quite stop his lip from curling, and he freezes the tableau in place with almost contemptuous ease, slips open the door and sleepdarts both occupants of the room, has already replaced the forged document in Timsh’s pouch when time snaps back into being.

Now, the smart money would be on making the most discreet possible approach to the basement, which houses the air regulator: a key to the backdoor hangs from Daud’s purse, it would be child’s play. He goes so far as to glance towards the balcony he’d came in on, but in the end a certain sort of spite (the sort that had seen him ransack the noble’s apartment, the sort that had led him to deny Lurk any information about the Outsider, the sort that he suspects—or would suspect, if he possessed the appropriate level of self awareness—is one of the things that drew the Outsider to his side originally) wins out, and he ransacks the place for anything of value, shatters glass encasing statuettes with disdain, and creeps down a floor to do it all over again. 

He makes out fairly well: Timsh and his firm have been striping belongings from those they've termed plague victims for months now, and the cream of the crop decorates the hallways in a style that is about as tastefully minimal as is possible in Gristol. Daud takes grim delight in shattering the illusion of peace and prosperity. He leaves the guards piled in the charmingly isolated corner sitting rooms, the lawyers sprawled in their own desk chairs. All the way to the basement he runs into no trouble: even there, so close to a vital portion of the house, his sole opposition is a single maid. He tucks her unconscious body into the dumbwaiter. From there, Daud leaves quickly, not wishing to linger when the stench of weeper fills the air. It's been bad enough carrying it around—the sooner he can return to the Flooded District and get a wash, the better. Leaving through the back door he'd earlier eschewed, Daud makes for the outpost to watch the fallout, a bolt loaded into his crossbow in case Timsh should be able to talk his way out of the pit Daud's dropped him down. 

Lurk waits for him there: kneeling at the corner of the roof, she spits "I hope his death is  _ agonizing _ ." with uncommon rancour. Daud doesn't speak, but he nods: Timsh has taken advantage of his employees, and unwillingly, at that. From the roof's corner, Lurk pushes to her feet, and the sound of rushing air fills Daud's ears. 

It's mere seconds before a second such rush of air fills the roof and leaves nothing but the stillness in its wake. 

The thing that strikes Daud most about his current line of work, post Empress assassination, is this: it’s quite literally easier than breathing. There are mornings he wakes up to greet the morning with his breath a snarled up ball in his chest, forced out by expletive after fury laced expletive, drawn back in with the bone deep pain of a wound gone septic, but he barely has to pay attention as he picks his way across the city, dodging watchmen and gang members alike as though their attempts at keeping watch were no more skilled than those of children playing watch and robber. 

He doesn’t even spare a contemptuous glance for the wall of light set up to keep intruders such as himself far, far from the legal district: Lurk may be concerned about Sokolov’s little toys, but Daud has yet to find a single one he couldn’t somehow circumnavigate. From atop a streetlamp he moves to the tiled roof that neighbours the wall, to a crackling electric sign, down onto the street itself. Watchmen are patrolling mere metres away, but Daud is nothing if not light on his feet, and he near strolls the width of the street, lets himself down onto a fan, and drops to the water far below.

There’s something welcome in the burn in his lungs from swimming deep, deep under water, long past when he should have surfaced for air. The water breaking over his face when he can no longer take the pressure is freezing enough to make the day feel warm, and Daud feels alive from head to toe. Thalia doesn’t expect him to clamber out of the water behind her, and she’s momentarily flustered when he does so, alarm painting her face. Then, she pulls herself back together, just as Daud opens his mouth. Hopefully, his mirth will simply come across as pleasure at a job well done. 

“The Barrister’s enemies caught up to him. He’s in custody, as a plague victim. Here’s the will, as agreed.” He thinks he’s read Thalia properly, is certain that she’ll find this just as acceptable (if not moreso) than Timsh’s death, and he’s rewarded for his certainty when she says “That’ll do nicely. Perhaps better.” 

She pauses. “But you were promised information. Well. My uncle came under Delilah’s spell. He was obsessed with her. Everyone knew she’d been a servant at the tower before she’d studied under Sokolov. She was a painter, and artist. Beneath my family’s class for certain. My uncle became infatuated. But he looked older, made us keep candles lit all night. He was afraid of the dark. One night we all went to Waverly Boyle’s for a seance. It was an amusement. We didn’t know what we were doing. I thought only the dead appeared at seances. But suddenly Delilah was in the room with us—my uncle nearly died of terror. She was there, but not there. We saw her as if she was very far away, standing in the old Brigmore Manor. Painting at an easel, painting a name. It was your name, Daud. That’s all I know; I hope you find what you’re looking for.” 

Thalia walks off as soon as she’s done speaking—Daud gets it. It’s bad luck to be seen in his presence. Or really, in the presence of any armed and capable assassin the day several guards will be found unconscious in a wealthy man’s home. It’s just as well—he needs to return to base, he needs to work out how his Whalers will deal with the Witches—past allies are tricky, always, and they’re even moreso when they’re led by one marked by the Outsider. And this news of Emily promises to be disgustingly complicated: Daud had hoped never to see the girl again, but if his instincts serve him right, he may be close and personal with her in the upcoming days. Life looks—complex, and that’s without even factoring in the need to recover the ground he’s lost with Lurk, somehow. 

He walks back into the sewer from which he’d emerged mere hours earlier with his brain a steady whir, barely sees Lurk waiting for him at the door through his own thoughts.

It’s muscle memory to rein up short of her, though, where she stands easily at the Whaler’s version of parade rest. There’s something to the slant of her shoulders that has been missing for days, for weeks, and Daud feels a portion of the weight in his chest slide off—apparently, he need not worry about reclaiming the ground he’d lost with her: respect all but oozes the distance between them. 

“Timsh is ruined,” she says, still except for the movement necessary to shift her weight from foot to foot, “he’ll rot in Coldridge prison if they don’t send him to the Flooded District. It’s... poetic, I suppose. Maybe I was wrong about you, Daud.

“Are you ready to go?” 

The verbal admission soothes him further, and even he is surprised at the words that come out of his lips: “Let’s go home.”


	4. Betrayal

The trip back to the Flooded District feels quicker than any he’s made in the past six months. Don’t misunderstand: he feels the weight of the Outsider’s attention every step of the way, fictitious or not, and he can’t stop himself from remembering that it was his blade that allowed Gristol to sink to its current plague-ridden depths every time he hears a rat swarm in the distance or sees a pile of bodies that have simply been left to rot because all efforts at removing them have been overwhelmed, but despite the fact that he and Lurk do not keep each other in sight the entire way home he knows that their transversals are eerily in synch—she has stopped forcibly altering her path to remove it from his, and his training is coming to bear. She learned to transverse from him, was taught where could support the weight, where would crumble, inch by painful inch by Daud himself, and has fought at his side ever since: it’s only natural that they should fall into synch, and it eases the smallest bit of the rage wrapped in his chest, even mutes his distaste for the stench of the sewers as they approach their base. As they approach their home

Lurk goes up ahead to scout, and Daud is still nursing both his worries about the future and the warmth at having his second in command back, so he lets her without a second thought, anticipating nothing more than a rinse, and perhaps after, a game of cards. He unlocks the doors to let himself into the bottom of their base, and makes it up the stairs before Lurk returns.

The ease she’d shown on the trip home is entirely vanished, and combat readiness radiates from her in its stead. Even more worrying: her sword is out. As she stands, she sheaths it, says: “Daud, we’ve been attacked. Overseers are tearing the place apart, looking for you.” She walks right up to him, closer than she’s willingly gotten in weeks, and says with an urgency that means he’s instilled some measure of protective instinct towards the Whalers in her “They’re holding our remaining men, and their leader is in your chambers as we speak. If we take him out and free our men, we can still drive the Overseers back.”

He barely notices her intensity, his own fury is so deep. He’d known the Flooded District wasn’t impenetrable. The ease with which he travels the entire city told him long ago that no matter how secure a place is, someone will always be able to find it. But Lurk had said  _ remaining  _ men. And an Overseer in Daud’s chambers means the Whalers have sustained heavy casualties. Not all the Whalers might like Daud, but his quarters are sacrosanct. That this lead Overseer has access to his chambers—forcibly, Daud recognizes the looping thought process for what it is, and tears his mind from it. He finds, to his surprise, that he’s been talking. 

“I want to know how the  _ bastards _ found us in the first place.”

Lurk knows better than to further conversation when she hears that tone. She launches herself up and into the base without a single word more. He follows, grim. First and most important is the rescue of his people: no one carrying Outsider powers should be left in the hands of the Overseers, and these are personally bound to him.  _ Him _ . He is the one who promised them the relative (anachronistic) safety of being bound to one of the largest and most well known assassination gangs in Gristol—which included the relative surety that they would not be attacked in their own homes. That they would not lose their own people inside their base. That they would be too  _ good _ to lose people. He promised, and he failed to deliver. 

He’ll save those who are left, or he’ll die trying. And he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lurk will be right there with him, even if it means bleeding her life out into the flooded streets of their home. 

He follows the distinctive teeth-juddering-out-of-their-gums feeling of Overseer music straight to the first captured Whaler. From just outside the range of the horrific thing, Daud takes iron grip over his fury and  _ forces _ the world into stillness. With one last deep breath, he sprints the distance separating himself and his Whaler, slits the ropes holding him captive, and shoots a single sleeping dart at the Overseer with the music box before he transverses back to safety, throwing himself off the roof to avoid engaging in combat. He knows if it comes to it, he’ll have no chance at stopping himself from massacring the Overseers, and the Outsider’s words ring in his ears: “Do you think this will help you dodge what’s coming?” 

The Outsider never made jabs unless there was something to be gleaned from them, and Daud’s banking on old habits dying hard, even for gods. 

If he’s wrong, he’s sure whatever Whalers survive his passing will hunt the Overseers down and make them pay. 

The next Whaler would be a few scant transversals away—except for those abominable music boxes. It takes Daud twenty minutes and four choked out Overseers to find a safe place to observe from, and what he sees doesn’t exactly help with his resolution towards the application of nonlethal force. It’s not just his Whaler cringing on the ground in obvious pain that does it: the Overseer who seems to be in charge of the interrogation (if you can even call it that, with the Whaler’s blood probably boiling in his body from proximity to the hateful box) is holding a grenade, and the implication seems to be that he’ll shove it down the Whaler’s throat if he doesn’t give up Daud’s location. As if he could if he wanted. He reaches for the chokedust nearly instinctively. and thinks that he may have a future in this nonlethality business, for the heartbeat before he hurls it as hard as he can directly at the Overseer with the music box. The second it hits, he freezes time, flings himself down into the courtyard, and cuts the Whaler’s bonds. Before time has even resumed, he’s back on the roof and clambering in through the window he’d used to access the courtyard in the first place. At no point does it occur to him to aid the captured Whaler any further: any one of his men is worth six of the Overseers, and they seem to be guarding in groups of three. That’s careless of them. Daud fully intends to capitalize on it. 

Twice more, Daud rescues one of his Whalers. Then, when he scours the Flooded District and finds no more captive assassins, he turns grimly towards the most heavily fortified sector of his own base: the Overseer in charge is so loosely guarded he may as well be on his own, which tells Daud that there is something of greater importance to this one than his own skin. And Daud plans on finding out just what that is. Getting in is a nightmare—not because the Overseers are particularly adept at combat, but simply because of the sheer number of music boxes they’ve littered his district with. He makes it, though, leaves his district littered with broken music boxes and unconscious Overseers. What he sees—well. Suffice to say that he tears the edge of the paper he’s poring over, and curses up a blue streak in the Outsider’s name. The map shows a coordinated sweep of the Flooded District, but—the Overseers he’s been dealing with haven’t stuck to the plan. 

Someone tipped them off. 

He doesn’t know for sure, of course, but it seems the most logical conclusion, and for a moment Daud sees red. It’s not that he hasn’t done worse.

It’s that his people deserved better. 

He wipes out the Overseers in his base and his chambers almost without thought, fury sharpening the edges of his movements so that each, already concussive in their own right, are near lethal. Once the place is clear, he transverses to the highest point of the hastily constructed walkways he’d always been meaning to order reinforced, and summons Lurk.

Half of him is afraid she won’t be able to see his summons, that she’ll have (of course) been injured, or killed, and just as they had looked to be reconciling the space between themselves. Half of him thinks he’s being ridiculous, and is confirmed when Lurk’s familiar kneeling form materializes in front of him. “Give the word, sir. What’s our next move.” she says, and Daud barely tastes the sourness in his mouth that is a mixture of exhaustion and anger when he says “Capture as many as you can. Their plans are ruined.” Lurk nods, and Daud is treated to the familiar sight of her standing, clapping a fist to her heart, and going about executing his orders. It’s a tiny breath of normalcy about the chaos the Flooded District has been thrown into, and Daud appreciates it more than he is comfortable saying. He waits for his orders to be carried out, seated on a chair he digs out of the wreckage, because he is tired, so tired, and because it does his Whalers well to see him looking unbothered by the chaos before him. 

He knows it’s done when Lurk joins the row of Whalers that has been steadily growing for the past ten minutes. He’s been on his feet since the first of them didn’t head out at once again after returning, and so he wastes no time in demanding: “Give me a report,” of her. 

“We’ll take the Overseer who led the attack and find out what else he knows. As soon as he’s conscious. It seems the Overseers are marching into the Flooded District, planning a massive assault against us. This Overseer Hume went against orders and attacked early. Our men? The ones you freed? Were able to rout the remaining zealots. This place belongs to us again.” Daud nods, terse. “How did the cursed Overseers find us?” He asks, because no one ferrets out secrets like Lurk. No one. 

The next words out of Lurk’s mouth hit him like Krust spit to the gut.

“It’s my fault,” she says, closing the distance between them in a series of short, desperate steps. “I told Delilah where we were hidden.”

He thinks he tastes blood in his throat, his breath is roaring in his ears, and he’s fighting,  _ fighting _ to hear over it, because she’s not done talking yet. “She wanted me to turn on you.” 

Daud doesn’t recognize his own voice. “You did this.” Desperation is tingeing her posture now and she doesn’t stop, though her shoulders slouch and he knows that she knows no explanation will make this right. “I can’t go through with it,” she says. Daud is two seconds and half a pace from his hands around her throat when a sibilant voice slicks down through the air towards them. Delilah. “Stupid child,” she hisses, “all you had to do  _ was cut his throat _ .” 

“He deserves better.” Billie contradicts, bitterness surging through the words, a sharp hand slashing her negation. He recognizes the gesture. It's Whaler shorthand for absolute certainty. “I was an  _ idiot  _ to listen to you.”

“So that’s your choice, then.” Delilah says, contempt dripping from her every syllable. 

Daud isn’t sure what’s keeping her from attacking—other than maybe the Whalers. For the first time since she’d appeared in the heart of his base, she addresses Daud. “Daud. Her betrayal would have been the sweetest, but either way the Brigmore Witches will be your  _ end _ . You should have forgotten my name the day you heard it.” 

Daud’s watching Delilah for any sign that she’ll attack, but he is aware, keenly aware of how close Billie stands to him—when she moves, his attention whips back to her, and he only feels slightly sick to his stomach that he is ready to kill her if she attacks him. Not that she does: she only removes her mask, and the sight of her face is like a gutpunch all over again. “I think it was always understood between us,” she says, gesturing towards him in what might be an imploring manner were she any other “that I would see my moment, and take your place.” Looking down, she shakes her head. “I moved too early. You weren’t weak, like I thought.” 

She’s not wrong. 

Daud has always been aware that one does not retire peaceably from wetwork, and it’s not like his death was likely to come at the hands of a  _ watch officer _ . But she’s right: she’d moved too early. And she’d gone for the plan that accounted for collateral damage. A blade to the back he could have forgiven. A smothering in the night, a poison (though one to which he were not immune might be difficult to procure) in his drink—any of these he could have forgiven. The Whalers whose corpses had littered (litter still) the ground of the Flooded District like so much trash? Those, he could never forgive. 

“I’m only sorry I didn’t pick a better ally.” She says, and. Well. Daud expects no different from her, now. He can practically hear the angry hissing from his surviving Whalers. “Delilah made contact with the Overseers; I thought, between the three of us, we’d have you dead to rights.”

Not for the first time in the past five minutes, Billie owes her continued life to the witch she’d allied herself to, because just as visions of her guts on the ground begin to dance in front of Daud’s eyes, Delilah speaks up. “We can blame the zealots for that. Overseer Hume was too quick to move.” Daud grits his teeth, does his best to remember the years of service Lur—Billie had given him.

She goes for her sword, and it’s only Daud’s grappling with his treacherous feelings that saves her head and her neck an immediate and indecorous parting. “My life is yours now,” she says, going to one knee and offering him her sword, like her life hadn’t been his from the moment he’d allowed her to trace him back to headquarters, like they’d not had an understanding he had thought he would be able to repair, like he’d not seen a future for the two of them at the head of the Whalers for years to come, “kill me, or let me live.” As if an afterthought, lower: “If it even matters to you.” 

Daud is keenly aware of Delilah, wishes he could sort a way to make her leave without risking an all out combat with only battle-fatigued Whalers to back himself up and prisoners and a traitor to worry about. He’s even more keenly aware when she spits “Touching.  _ Pathetic _ . If I see either of you again, I’ll tear out your stone cold hearts and  _ walk in your skin _ .” She explodes into a cloud of noxious looking green fumes, and Daud doesn’t know whether to be relieved or sickened that he is (for a given measure of the word) alone with Billie’s betrayal to deal with. Looking back to her, he remembers how old he had thought he felt sitting in the dining room adjacent to an Outsider shrine earlier that same day. He’s not sure what he’d give to go back, but he is sure that it would be impossible, no matter the price. The next words out of his mouth cost him more than he thinks the price would be, twice over, and no matter that now is hardly the first time he’s lied to 

“I forgive you.”

He doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t crush her throat. He doesn’t let anything but studied indifference and cruelty touch his expression, even if he can’t keep the fatigue from his voice.

“Get out of here. Leave the city. Leave my sight, Billie. I give you your life.”

She doesn’t say a single word before she transverses away. 

Later, alone in his rooms, he will rage. He will reach deep into the furiously roiling pit of rage that had once called itself his stomach and he will scream until it paints the walls like arterial spray, until it is no longer inside him but instead spatters everything in sight, until he cannot read the signs of Billie Lurk about any longer, until they have been entirely covered by  _ anger _ . Later is not now. Now, he says “Thomas.” and if his tone sounds one half as furious to his Whalers as it does to him, then it’s no surprise that Thomas flinches straight up into parade rest at the sound of it. “Congratulations. You’re promoted. Get this mess cleaned up.” 

Rarely does he wish that he wore the distinctive Whaling mask that every one of his subordinates does. He is the face of the Whalers, he is the Knife of Dunwall, he is not simply a Whaler. It would be counterintuitive for him to wear a mask when his face is as good as a death warrant in and of itself. Now, though, he nearly wishes for the blank slate the Whaling mask presents as an expression. He grits his teeth. “And see to the funeral rites. Bring someone in if you must. Don’t disturb me until it’s done. Then, find Stride. I want to cut this viper’s head off before she can strike again.”

Thomas’ fist hits his chest with the sort of unquestioning finality that means Daud can transverse away without a further thought. 

So he does.  ****


	5. redistribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> okay i know its been more than a year, but here goes nothing, take an update! if all goes well, they're going to keep coming with decent regularity, maybe every other week. i know this is short, but more is on the way.

Daud does not expect to sleep well, not with Overseer hangings decorating his literal bedroom, but he has need of rest, and he cannot muster the energy to rip them down before he takes it. He transverses in, taking instinctive stock of the few tiny bits of Lurk that remained in the forgotten corners of his room, and chooses to sleep rather than admit he’s seen them and attempt to purge them. His gear gets properly stowed, because men like Daud live and die by their gear, but he doesn’t so much as remove his boots before he crawls onto his bed, doesn’t so much as pull a sheet over himself before he closes his eyes, and rejects awareness with every bit of strength of will remaining to his name. 

He catapults directly into a dream, of course, because that is how this works. In the dream he is standing at his audiograph, and he says, “The men are recovering well from the attack, but they don’t understand the danger they’re in. My mother warned me, never to make an enemy of a witch.”

Through the Arcane Bond, he feels a moment of utter panic, and he turns, whipcord fast, to see one of his Whalers—Caden, with cir sword out, leaning towards a fallen Whaler. Leaning towards Killian, if the lanky frame is anything to go by. That’s wrong, and ce knows it: Killian survived the Overseer attack. There is no reason for him to be lying flat aground in Daud’s study. He is about to snap to stop staring at the man and ready for a fight when the not unfamiliar form of the Empress’ old bodyguard implodes into existence behind his Whaler, the soft whoomph the only warning before he takes three sharp steps and chokes cir out. 

The sight flares Daud’s rage hotter than a sun. “Corvo.” he says, as much to dig up preparedness from the core of himself as to give his rage a moment to cool. “Here to settle our debt?” 

Caden hits the ground, and Corvo begins his approach on Daud proper, as Daud says “You understand, I won’t make this easy for you.”

This fails to stop the man’s approach.

Daud curses, though he truly hadn’t expected it to end so easily, sights his wristbow, fires and fires again, takes a moment to thank the Void that his wristbow reloads automatically, and then disregards bolts entirely in favour of dropping to a crouch and transversing to directly behind Corvo, already unfolding out of it towards him as his feet find the ground again. 

Of course, he hits nothing but thin air—but this is the first time Corvo has responded to his aggressor at all, and Daud feels a grim sort of pleasure take root beside his determination as he leans on his Void Sight for a better view of his surroundings.  _ Damned _ if he was going to be prey,  _ damned _ if Corvo would walk in here entirely without pause and simply  _ take his life _ . If Daud is to die here, his death is going to cost Corvo dearly.

He sights Corvo just in time for the man to transverse towards him, and Daud’s sword comes up as much out of reflex than anything else, crashes Corvo’s to a halt, and Daud takes advantage of the momentary shock that shakes Corvo loose to shove his weight into the point where their swords meet. Corvo stumbles backwards, and Daud follows through with a vicious punch towards that mask, lacerates his glove on the wires and growls, bearing him to the ground and slamming his head into it hard enough that a startled grunt escapes the man. Hate creasing his face, Daud drags him up and slams him down again, and when he spies the telltale glow of Corvo’s Mark from the corner of his eye, he snarls “ _ No _ ,” and before the man can finalize whatever desperate ploy he is making, Daud shoots him in the throat, close range.

Corvo’s body jerks instinctively, and Daud shoots him again for good measure, imagines that everything that has gone wrong in the past six months could die with Corvo, and shoots him once more before he notices the black bubbling up in the floorboards around the two of them. Corvo is dead, there’s no doubt of that, but Daud had been wrong when he’d thought he’d killed the man in time.

The rats form with their teeth already dug into his skin, and he dies screaming.


	6. alliances

Daud snaps awake with about as much finesse as a punch to the face, already upright before he’s even truly said good morning to awareness. A Whaler—Aaron, Aaron is standing next to his bed, and Daud rasps “What? I—What is it?” and takes a moment to try to cough the insistent pain out of his throat.

Not one for long speeches even before the death of his sweetheart, Aaron simply says “Thomas has returned with the information you requested. He’s waiting for you below.”

Then, he is gone. 

In normal times, Daud would ask Lu—Billie, Daud would ask Billie for a performance review, and if the numbers balanced, he would find Aaron a new partner, one who could fill the gap Heather’s death had left. As things stand, Aaron will take whomever is left alive, and Daud will not waste time thinking on it. He has a mad witch to find, if any of the Whalers are to survive the upcoming months. The pain of one must be subordinate to the pain of many. 

He swings himself out of bed with a touch less than his usual flair: he is not looking forward to seeing the remnants of his old second in command about his bedchambers. Still: he can't not look to the corner that had held a single stray glove with a tear in it. He remembers the glove’s story, remembers the barbed wire Lu—Billie had sacrificed a glove on rather than spare a moment to cut in her haste to get to the fight he’d simply transversed into. She’d made some sort of offhand comment about repairing it later, once they’d made it safely back, and when he’d chastised her for not simply transversing in, she’d looked him dead in the face and said in that dessicated tone of hers that meant she was surprised he was being this obtuse “And what would I have done if I needed to grab you and leave, old man? I only had one more left in me.” 

They’d had things other than sewing to occupy themselves not long after that, and L—Billie had never gotten around to sewing it shut. It had been something his glance had skated over, but it had been something he’d taken comfort from. It had been proof that she was too deeply entrenched in his life to be removed. Now, well.

Now, as it turns out, he needn’t worry about what seeing it might evoke, because it’s. Not there. He’s leaning on Void Gaze the heartbeat he realizes, but the corner in which it had been gathering dust shines an unrelenting and empty blue, same as ever. 

It means someone had been in here to clean up. More specifically, since Daud is fairly certain none of his Whalers would have known what to take, it means  _ she _ had been here to clean up. He rounds on the stairwell to find Thomas, and catches a glimpse of a charm’s glow from the chest at the foot of his bed. The locked chest at the foot of his bed—or at least the should-be-locked chest at the foot of his bed. Somehow, this doesn’t surprise him. Wearily, or maybe warily, he walks the few short steps to it, and pries it open. There are two gold ingots inside, a corrupted bone charm, a book, and a note. He disregards all for the note, picking it up and breaking the seal that keeps it shut without examining it too close. He knows it will have been shut by his seal. Smoothing it open, he sees Billie’s familiar scratchy handwriting. 

The letter reads:

“No need to waste breath with apologies or excuses. You taught me that. All I can say is that as soon as I left Dunwall my head felt clear, maybe for the first time.

You told me once that people like us burn hot, then burn up. We don't get a chance to start over. No long days in the sun. But I know you, Daud. Despite all the blood on your hands, you've been stashing coin. No one does that if they're not holding on to something. You've got some kind of plan, some hope for a new life.

Maybe you knew, maybe you didn't, but that's what you gave me when you let me walk away. The one thing you said that wasn't possible. And I will never forget that. When the time comes - and it will - I hope you're watching close so you get that chance too.

I left a book for you. The world is big. Bigger than I knew. There are lots of places where an old man like you could disappear.

\- Billie”

For a moment, once he’s done reading, he feels the urge to crush the note in his fist. 

The coin had been secret. 

The gold looks like half of everything she’d had. 

The note means she had smuggled herself out of the city, gotten free and clear and yet—his eyes trace over the words “All I can say is that as soon as I let Dunwall my head felt clear, maybe for the first time.” She’d gotten free and clear and she’d come back, for him. Downstairs, he can hear his Whalers moving about their business: he full well expects his quarters to be crawling with them until they feel safe once more. Until they feel he is safe once more. 

After all.

The two are (or should have been) (or were promised to have been) one and the same. And because Daud has been shaped near as much by his time as a leader as by his time as the Outsider’s favourite, he rolls the letter back up, takes the charm in case it should prove advantageous, and closes the chest. He wants nothing more than to sit back down on his bed with the book and to page through it, but the coin had been a secret, and it had been discovered despite his being far more careful with it than examining it in public, which means he most certainly cannot afford to read the book anywhere it might be seen. So he makes his way downstairs, pauses briefly at the bottom when a Whaler says “Begging your pardon, Daud.” He gestures minutely and the Whaler continues “I don’t think it’s safe to leave these overseers holed up in the refinery.”

Daud doesn’t need to think before he answers. “It’s a new game now. They know where to find us. We just have to make them afraid to.”

The Whaler nods his assent, and Daud strides past him to his gear. 

Once he hears what Thomas has to say, he doubts he’ll feel much like sticking around. 

His wristbow feels good when he slots it into place, and by the time he sheathes his sword, he’s nearly escaped the sensation of teeth in his back. Picking up the rune he’s been saving brings a flash of it back, but his grip tightens on the thing and it subsides, sullen, as it slips into his coat pocket. 

Daud knows the feeling. 

He checks up on the first Whaler who stands with his arms crossed, staring at the blocked off accessway. “I’ve made a mess of the accessways, but it had to be done. If I come back, I’ll take it all down.”

“We’ll be back.” Daud says, projecting real confidence into his voice. “And then you can burn those Overseer drapes while you’re at it.”

Casting a backwards glance over his shoulder at where Thomas waits, Daud holds up a single finger. “I’m going to check on the men.” He says, as though he needs to justify himself, and then he pushes out through the doors leading to the common space. Aaron has taken up residence at the window, and Daud approaches quietly, a small performance review, all he has time for.

The Whaler speaks even before Daud has cleared his throat. “Corvo’s out there, Daud. It’s only a matter of time before he shows up here.”

Perceptive, and cautious, too. Though perhaps not as cautious as he should be. Daud’s lips thin out into a tight line, and then he says “He’s got the Lord Regent’s army to chew through first.”

Aaron subsides at that, placated. 

The next two Whalers he finds unoccupied are engaged in a discussion of Daud’s follies, and presumably how better  _ they _ might run the Whalers. “Taking prisoners is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.” The second cuts in with “You don’t have to remind me. It’s Billie’s doing that the Overseers found us. That wasn’t Daud.”

“Daud should have caught it. And now witches?” The first Whaler contests. “He’s not the man he was.” Daud’s on the verge of stepping forward when the second Whaler says “Quiet!” The note of panic in his voice lets Daud ease his weight back onto his back foot for a moment, and he decides perhaps he needn’t interfere when the Whaler continues “You’re going to get us killed.” Moments after, they are gone. 

Daud grits his teeth before he resumes his circuit. Moments after crossing the room’s threshold, he has a new reason to grit his teeth. 

Atop one of the tall bookshelves lining the room lies a rune. 

He transverses up to it and lands crouched, reaches out to take it and feels the old sensation of a piece of Void slotting into place in existence. Softly, bitterly, he curses under his breath. 

The last time a rune fresh from the Void had hit his palm had been before he’d lost the Outsider’s favor. It figures that it would take the loss of his own left hand to get his toe back in the door for it. 

The sour taste is his mouth doesn’t stop him from pocketing the rune, though. The second it clanks to rest next to the others of its kind, Daud transverses down to the Whaler examining one of the boarded up windows. “This will hold while we’re away.” The Whaler says. “Anything short of cannonfire.” Daud fights back the urge to blow out a long stream of air, and simply says “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.” 

The Whaler recognizes the dismissal for what it is, and doesn’t push his luck. 

Before the attack, Daud would have transversed down to the training rooms, would have stood in on a few rounds. Now, though, those have been shut down, and he finds his appetite for discussion waning.

Turning on his heel, he doesn’t pause on the way back to Thomas.

“I found Lizzy Stride,” Thomas says, without preamble “Getting her to lend us her boat will be a bit complicated, however. She’s in Coldridge. From what I hear, they’ve got enough on her to hold her for about a thousand years.” Instead of being dismayed by the news, Daud feels a knot of vicious pleasure well up in his chest. This means he won’t have to pay Stride for the favour in exchange for just the smallest bit more work on his part. And that she’ll remain in his debt for the foreseeable future. With a Void-sung rune humming in his pocket and not a single Whaler prepared to match him, Daud feels a kinship with his younger self that he’d thought long dead and buried, like movement in a coffin a decade entombed. 

The Empress and the dead weigh heavy over his shoulders, but he can feel the lightness of the Void seeping back into his gut even as he stands still. “Coldridge...” he says, when he remembers this is something he should do. “We can use this. We’ll get her out, and Stride will have to pay back the favour. We’ll have our transport.” Thomas doesn’t even bother nodding his acceptance of the plan of attack. He knows it’s not a discussion. “Ready to leave, sir?” He asks instead. “Or should I wait.”

Daud shakes his head. “Let’s go.”


	7. Muster

The men Daud has on the Overseers intercept one who’s been sent to Coldridge to investigate a suspicious death, and if Daud had had any lingering doubt that the Outsider’s gaze has turned (at the least) slightly fonder in its derision, it’s completely erased. Long ago, he’d entertained the Outsider by impersonating Overseers where being caught would cost him the most. This is a familiar song and dance. This, he can do.

They strip a dead Overseer of roughly the right shape and height, take his clothes and his mask, and then Daud makes his way to Coldridge. Thomas tries to council stealth, the way in, but Daud can feel the certainty of his path thrumming through his veins if he keeps his grip on the guilt, and he’s been keeping his grip on a guilt for months now. This guilt is larger, and harder to contain, but Daud is a stronger man than even his own grief, and so his steps are certain. Tugging at his sleeves, he takes the long climb up to Coldridge on his own, and sets out towards the prison guards through the screech of Overseer music.

His breath tastes like blood within moments of exposure, but he forces himself to remain tall, to act as though the sound wasn’t scouring through his ears, and as one of them calls out “Overseer.” he draws up to a halt. “About time, Overseer. We sent for you hours ago.” Daud shrugs. “There was a problem with the water lock.” The guard shakes his head. “Fine. Listen up. The incident took place in the Interrogation Room. Cross the yard and keep going straight. Anything else is off limits, understand? Don’t go exploring. Don’t speak to the prisoners. We’re not here to listen to you preach. Don’t forget you’re in Coldridge now, not the Abbey. We asked you here for one reason.” Daud is fighting the urge to laugh by the end of the diatribe, but instead of responding to any of the bait, he says “I’ll be gone before you know it.” Stride cocky, he enters the prison just as the edges of his vision threaten to blur, and the Overseer magic fades into the background. 

Behind the mask, Daud's face recovers from the rictus of determination and agony that it had screwed up into. Cross the yard and keep going straight. He can do that. He pulls up short in front of the gate, and turns the flatly disapproving scowl of his mask on the guard manning the switch. 

He is not held up long. 

Daud all but waltzes past the deactivated arc pylon, and takes a moment to thank (— _ not _ the Outsider,  _ not _ Him, Daud  _ refuses _ ) his lucky stars that his men had intercepted the Overseer. Sneaking past that might have actually taken some finesse on his part. He crosses the yard with the conscious step of someone who knows they are being watched, and doesn’t mind. It’s not hard: for years, that had been his default stride. Only relatively recently had he been forced to adopt a more careful approach, and it’s like slipping back on an old skin. He doesn’t know if that should worry him or not. 

The Interrogation Room looks like  _ it’s _ what the Lord Protector blew up on his way out of Coldridge. Daud draws the door shut behind himself, and takes a moment to stare at the rubble that is the room’s most defining feature. Plants grow from it at improbable angles, and the corpse in the interrogation chair seems to both absorb and emit light. He takes a moment to whistle softly: the place reeks of Outsider magic, and he recognizes well enough the mark of the Brigmore Witches, despite the change in power they’ve undergone since their parting of ways. He lets out a low impressed whistle under his breath, then beelines directly to the desk at the head of the room, looking for anything that might help him pinpoint his target. 

As he approaches, he can’t help but smile: crates have been overturned, and one reeks of runes, the other of gold. He forgoes the desk entirely in favour of collecting the goods, then turns back to the desk once they’re both well and proper in his possession. A key has been left (ever so carelessly) on the desk, as well as a pouch: Daud pockets both, and then purses his lips, engages his Void Gaze, and takes a look at the situation outside the room. 

There are three guards. One atop a balcony, one making rounds, and one posted at the door leading to the remained of the prison. Patiently, Daud waits until the one on the balcony has left to walk his rounds, and then opens the door, slams time to a standstill, and shoots the guard farthest away with a sleeping bolt, chokes out the second. They’re both prone in a corner of the interrogation room before time snaps back into being, and Daud rolls his shoulders to work out the irritation from their weight. Not bad, he thinks. A quick scan shows him that the third guard has yet to return, so he transverses to a perch atop the giant wall of bars separating the prison cells from the interrogation chamber and the yard, then to the top level of cells. He’s in luck, because as it turns out, Lurk is in the second cell he checks—D24. Backtracking quickly, he checks for the guard, transverses directly behind him, and chokes him out. It’s over in a heartbeat, and not for the first time, Daud is grateful for the charm that sped up the process and his own years of practice that make it a cinch.  He creeps to the cell control room, leaves the guard atop the table, and opens Stride’s cell remotely. 

It takes him maybe the better part of a half minute to get back to Stride, but in that time she manages to go from delirious but probably able to walk under her own power, to slumping facefirst to the ground when he releases her. Sighing, he says “I guess I’ll have to carry her out,” slipping back into the bad habit of narrating his thought process for an alien observer without so much as a second thought. 

He’d noted a cache of valuables atop the corridor leading to the cell control chamber, and he’d wager good money that such a thing meant there would be an accessway, so it’s back to the cold corridor for the third time in perhaps as many minutes, and then he’s atop the corridor, and diverts to take the valuables. Shouldn’t’ve been left here if they weren’t for any enterprising soul. He ignores the note with them, and as soon as the gold is all in his pockets, he glances around for his way out. Clambering up to the highest part of the structure, he notes a pair of pipes, hefts Stride higher onto his shoulder, then makes the transversal. Just like that, he’s across the yard, though he has to quash the thought that interjects: was it this easy for Attano? 

He follows the pipes all the way out, transverses down to the bridge, and then hops over the side, picking his careful way down to the sewers—a quick detour to pick up the rune, and then he ducks into the sewers, and like clockwork, one of his Whalers appears. He hands Stride over with careless ease. “She’s beaten, but not dead. See that her wounds get attention.” In the face of his inability to clasp a fist to his chest in assent, the Whaler says “It will be done,” and transverses out, just in time to be replaced by Thomas. “All quiet, sir.” Thomas says. “Ready to go?” Daud nods. “Let’s go.”

Back in the flooded district, it takes Stride a good nine hours to regain consciousness, and when she does, what she has for Daud isn't good news. She'd been in Coldridge because her second in command had put her there. A man by the name of Edgar Wakefield: for years he'd been kept down by Stride's near iconic cruelty—betraying her would have cost him too much. In a heartbeat, that had changed, and before Stride had had that heartbeat's warning, she'd been in Coldridge. Daud can practically feel the Void’s shuddering laughter in the air. 

It appears he’ll have to get Lizzy Stride’s gang back for her. It appears, he has business with Edgar Wakefield.

He sends a group of Whalers in ahead of himself, and their leader is ready to report when Daud steps into the alley leading to Draper’s Ward. He pauses a moment, nerves showing despite the mask covering his face, and then says “The textile mill used to run off a waterwheel before the canal went dry. It started up again recently, and whatever the Hatters did to get it working has enraged the Dead Eels. They’re fighting in the streets.” Report given, the Whaler transverses back to the rest of his squad, and Daud drops pre-emptively into a crouch, creeping closer to where shouting can be heard. 

While it’s true that Daud can transverse to anywhere he can imagine, the reality of the situation is that without a concept of what he’s transversing into, he’s as likely to materialize himself half inside a wall as he is to fail entirely—imagining yourself crouched atop a set of vents is all well and good, but if there are no vents to imagine yourself onto, well. You don’t get very far. Point is, he needs a visual if he’s going to get through the street without leaving any marks behind.

And the last thing he needs is either the Hatters or the Dead Eels coming at him and his while they deal with Delilah and her witches. 

He’s across the street in a single transversal, crouched safely hidden behind tin paneling mere moments after. Serendipity is with him, because the Eels who he had been about to deal with are drawn into a conflict down the street, and subsequently slaughtered. Were he a decade younger, this would be the point where Daud aimed a pleased wink at the empty air up and to his right. Now, though, his mouth just presses into a firm line, and he creeps up to the two gang members standing over a safe, shoots them both with sleep darts, and ducks into the canal to retrieve the rune he’d paid to be delivered. Then, as much out of hard won practicality as any real need, he searches the rushes for the key to the safe. If they’d dredged it up, it would only make sense for the key to be nearby. 

Finding it is the matter of thirty seconds at most, and he thinks it’s a fair enough trade-off when he opens the safe and finds a gold bar. That gets tucked safely away, and then Daud is up and resuming his path towards the riverfront, peering ‘round the corner of a street leading off the canal-front to see a Hatter and an Eel, one standing over the other. For a moment, he considers. Then, he figures it’s all the same: the Eels will (hopefully) be allies, once he’s dealt business with Wakefield, which means every Eel alive is an Eel who can help his men. He shoots the Hatter with a sleep dart, and lets his body hit the ground. Hopefully, he’ll be mistaken for one of the dead. If not, well. Daud doesn’t really care, see. 

He transverses up to a balcony, giving in to the deep embedded urge to be high enough of the ground to see everything in his vicinity, and smiles a grim smile as he recognizes the house he’s perched outside of.

This is the home of Jerome, and Jerome sells the sorts of items that men of Daud’s calibre find most useful. A moment’s thought, and he stands dead centre of the little room that makes up most of Jerome’s apartment. The man smiles, says “Welcome to the Draper’s Ward Salvage and Resale. Or the black market if you’d prefer. It’s Daud, right? Recognized your face from the posters. Not that I’d ever say anything to anyone. Believe me, I’d be happy to have you for a customer.”

As though he doesn’t already know, Daud says “What are you selling?” and Jerome gives the right answer: “Tell me what strikes your fancy.”

Daud has a good feeling about this black marketeer. 

He replaces the sleeping darts he’d expended earlier with the Hatters, and thoroughly loots Jerome’s apartment while he’s at it. The locked safe contains fifty coin and a rewire tool, neither truly worth the effort of stealing the safe key without Jerome’s notice, but Daud does it anyway, and steadfastly refuses to examine his motives. 

Then it’s out the window, and Daud tips himself onto the next rooftop over only to find an Eel guard station. He shoots both of them in the back, and loots  _ their  _ station for good measure. When he re-engages Void Gaze, the sympathetic resonance of the runes in his pocket is explained: the Outsider isn’t watching closer than usual, there’s simply a rune within fifty feet. Despite the odd feeling of disappointment, Daud heads for it—runes aren’t to be turned down. 

The apartment houses a man, and Daud (against his better judgement) climbs through the window, and waits for the man to notice him. A decade ago, the way he recoils backwards would have been something he’d laugh over for weeks. Now, he barely feels a stab of amusement. “Who are you?” The man asks. “Are you with her?” 

“With her?” Daud asks, mind flashing to Stride, then to Delilah. As though the man knows what he’s thinking, he says “Delilah. Are you with her? No, but you don’t have any roses.” 

Daud’s focus narrows in an instant, and he steps forward into his best loom. “What can you tell me about Delilah?” The man sighs. “I used to make clothing for the Kaldwins, you see? I adored them, especially young, precocious Emily. She was such a delight. Did you ever meet the Empress? She was so special. And I was able to count her among my friends. I had a lock of hair from young Emily. A keepsake given to me when my hands grew too stiff and clumsy to work the needle. I have treasured it so. And Delilah? She visited me here. Such a surprise to see her, all grown up. So serious. Did you know she was once a playmate of Jessamine’s? Before she was Empress, when they were both little.”

He pauses for a moment, clearly hesitating. Then, he says “I thought it was a cordial visit at first, but it turned… frightening.”

Daud doesn’t need the familiar sense that he’s about to get the information he needs to tell him to prompt the man. The words “What happened?” fall from his lips nearly on their own. The dressmaker shakes his head as he speaks. “She made… things come out of the shadows. Long and grasping. I can still feel the cold on my neck. I sound mad, don’t I? Perhaps I am. 

“She questioned me, and then left me propped up in the corner like a bolt of cloth. I couldn’t move for three nights while she made the horrid markings you see now. Then she stole my only keepsake, my lock of hair from dear, sweet Emily.” Another pause, and then: “Ah, Emily. Where are you? Damn that Corvo. And  _ damn _ Delilah.”

His bit said, the dressmaker turns on his heel and walks out to the balcony. Daud isn’t entirely certain that it’s safe to be out there, but—glancing around at the markings on the walls, Daud concedes that in here might not be much safer. The second the man is outside, Daud moves for the rune attached to his wall, and not simply because he wants the runesong to stop: considering the length of time that Delilah spent here, and the obvious tie to Emily, chances are that whatever the rune is fueling isn’t good. And he doesn’t hold it in his hand for a moment longer than he needs to because the weight is a comfort, no matter what anyone might say to the contrary. 

He knows he’s on the Draper’s Ward street front only to get to the riverfront, only for Stride, but he thinks that perhaps Stride will wait—any information about Delilah’s whereabouts and doings is information he desperately needs. He’s sprinting desperately towards her near blind, and while he knows it is his only option if he wishes to save himself and his Whalers, he doesn’t like being this ill-informed. He figures that’s why the Outsider has been so taciturn about the woman. Not, of course, that Daud thinks the Outsider would deliberately withhold information from one of his own just to be  _ petty _ . 

When he’s inspected the room to the best of his abilities, Daud heads for the waterfront: there’s a foul taste in his mouth from the markings on the walls, and he wants to get to Brigmore Manor as quickly as possible. There are two Eels in the courtyard that Daud lets himself into, and he chokes them both out deposits them in a handy nearby dumpster. Then, because he can’t resist the siren song of more gold, he transverses up to a balcony that leads to an apartment much too well furnished to be anything but a depot for the Eels. 

Thomas appears hot on his heels.

“Edgar Wakefield is onboard the Undine. He’s put all his Eels on alert since Lizzy’s rumored to have escaped from Coldridge. He is expecting her.  _ You _ will undoubtedly be a surprise to him.”

Moving to the window, Daud looks out and spots the Undine. “There’s the boat,” he remarks. “Wakefield’s probably keeping himself below decks. Whatever I do to him, it will be a mercy compared to what Lizzy has in mind.” Then, he sighs, and scans the entire riverfront, taking in the gathered Eels. Stride’s gang being weak and incompetent would have been too much to ask for, he supposes. He’ll just have to take his time. 

Taking his time is exactly what he does. He has no desire to engage with every single Eel present, so he creeps steadily along rooftops, pretending not to have seen the now-vanished woman who had been watching the Undine from one such rooftop herself with undue fascination, even as he stoops to pick up the corrupted bone charm she’d left behind. It’s as he’s doing just that that Thomas appears again, and Daud fights not to raise his eyebrows at the frequency of the Whaler’s check-ins. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost accuse Thomas of  _ hovering _ .

“Wakefield sealed himself in the cargo hold of the Undine.” Thomas reports. “Smuggling ships like this one often have a hatch underneath for dumping contraband if they get caught. Perhaps the Undine is no different.” As though he can sense Daud’s irritation, Thomas doesn’t stick around after delivering his status report. It’s the work of mere minutes to cross the yard: two well placed transversals sees him nearly directly atop a rune—or, more likely, nearly directly atop a Shrine. Some misplaced sense of propriety demands Daud incapacitate both of the Eels patrolling the outside of the building that houses the Shrine. Only when their bodies lie prone on the rooftop does he begin investigate the building itself for a way in. 

Unfortunately, the Outsider’s sense of humour is near as pervasive as his ties to the sea, and so it is with deep reluctance that Daud slips into the river water and pinpoints the underwater passageway into the building with ease. Dragging himself out of the water isn’t  _ precisely  _ as easy, but Daud’s used to being waterlogged, so he only needs to take a hard breath to steady himself. 

The last time Daud had been to a Shrine, Billie Lurk had been at his side and the air had pressed hard on his lungs. Now, well. Had the rune left any doubt, the first breath of air he takes would have eradicated it entirely: the ache in his shoulders eases in tandem with the one that springs up from his clenched jaw. He traces an unerringly faithful path directly to the Shrine, boots falling with near resentful eagerness. He does not think that this next meeting with his patron will mark the return to the way things used to be, but he knows that he is perhaps no longer out of favour with the Outsider—even if he is not precisely  _ in _ . 

He takes the rune from its position of honour without pause, and doesn’t think about how the splinters it feels like it drives under his nails feel like coming home. When he looks up, the Outsider has already manifested, and for a half-heartbeat Daud is once more sixteen, blood dripping from his hands and ghostly laughter crowding in his ears, no expression better suited for his face than savage delight. Just a half-heartbeat, just enough that Daud can feel it when it seeps from the room, and he has to fight not to snarl at the Outsider. Daud suspects the Outsider waits until he is less than successful in hiding his ire before he speaks, “You keep surprising me, Daud.” He says, sounding anything but dismayed at the concept. “Not long ago, I watched you kill an Empress and steal her child for coin. For a man like that, you went through Coldridge Prison with an awfully soft touch.” He uncrosses his arms, leans forward, and Daud knows the name of this game well enough, squares his shoulders and holds his ground. “I wonder,” the Outsider continues in that soft, silky tone, “are you hoping it will change the way things work out? Maybe. Maybe not. The song’s almost over. And when the music stops, we  _ all _ fall down.” The Voidsmell is thick enough to cut, Daud’s heart stutters in his chest, and for a moment, they’re close enough that Daud can almost feel the familiar weight of the Outsider’s arms slung casually over his shoulder, the chill of his forehead pressed against Daud’s neck. Then, he is alone again. 

For a moment, he closes his eyes, tries to dig up the familiar resentment that he’d nursed for nearly a decade; he’s better than this, Void take it, he’s  _ better _ —a chill ghosts down his spine, and he knows that he isn’t better than this at all. 

The burning in his chest from holding his breath when he leaves the Shrine behind him would feel like a penance, if Daud believed in penitence. He’s got himself mostly back together by the time he transverses back to the rooftop, and when Thomas transverses in Daud raises an eyebrow in invitation for him to talk. “Daud,” he says, urgency thick in his voice, “this is the second time. I see something or someone out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn...they’re gone. Someone is watching us.” 

It takes a moment of patience for Daud to be able to remind himself that his men are unaccustomed to having witches for enemies: of course this would be of great enough note to Thomas, so long accustomed to being the only thing capable of watching without being seen, to merit a report. Shaking his head, he resists the urge to pull him back and explain that this will be the norm until they have dealt with Delilah, moving to crouch at the edge of the rooftop instead. The Undine isn’t particularly well guarded, and he knows that he could be through the Eels patrolling like a hot knife through butter, but each Eel left alive for Stride to command is a potential ally, and no matter the temptation, he has not forgotten the words of the Outsider in the Legal District. 

Void Gaze shows that the cargo hold is empty save the figure he presumes is Wakefield, and so with a single resigned sigh, Daud transverses to directly underneath the boat, picturing the flow of water against the hull, picturing himself at the hatch. Gloved hands aren’t optimal for opening the hatch, but Daud has been wearing this uniform for years, and he has the hatch open before his lungs have even had time to protest the lack of oxygen. Its hinges have been kept well oiled, and the metal plates slide back silently; the only noise Daud’s entrance makes is the sound of water droplets hitting the wood where they roll off him. Glancing carefully around, Daud verifies that they are indeed alone in the hold, then gives in to a mean-spirited urge, arming his wristbow with a sleeping dart and sauntering over to Wakefield. 

The alarm on Wakefield’s face when he turns and sees the infamous  _ Knife of Dunwall _ standing behind him is sweet enough that Daud’s teeth ache behind his grin. “You’re Daud,” Wakefield says. “What—what brings you here?” 

“Lizzy Stride owes me a favour.” Daud says, face settling in grim lines. Wakefield is thinking so fast Daud wouldn’t be surprised to see steam coming from his ears, says “I’m sorry to hear that. You see, the Watch picked her up. I’m trying to hold things together while she’s in Coldridge. I’m awfully busy at the moment.” He crosses his arms, apparently satisfied that this will mislead Daud well enough that he will consider himself dismissed. Daud can feel his earlier smile threatening to break the seriousness of his expression, and he knows that to any familiar with his tones, his amusement would be near blatant when he says “I won’t take too much of your time. But there’s the matter of that favour.” Daud pinpoints the exact moment Wakefield starts to wonder if he can take this situation and turn it to his favour: the man raises a hand to rub at his chin, says, “Yeah? What exactly does she owe you for?”

Now, Daud lets that smile show, just the smallest bit, just enough to reveal  _ teeth _ . “First, for getting her out of Coldridge. Second, for what’s about to happen right now.” All Wakefield’s careful calculation falls away, overrun by panic, but before he’s even got a hand on his weapon, Daud’s shot him in the chest. He collapses, unconscious.

Now, the only thing left to do is let Lizzy know the Undine is hers. Hating himself more than a little for it, he tells the thin air “Time to signal Lizzy,” and focuses for a moment on his mental map of the Undine, takes a step forward, and is at the control panel of the boat. Turning to look for the horn, he pulls it, and at once the Whalers who have been waiting with Stride for his signal Transverse her in. Thomas appears nearly before the horn is done sounding, says “Lizzy Stride is assuming control of the Dead Eels now. She’s ordered them to give you safe passage.”

Say what you will about her methods, but Stride is good at maintaining discipline. Within minutes of her arrival, every single Eel is gathered aboard the Undine, and from where Daud leans idle against the rail, he can near taste the fear coming off the ranks of gang members. “Your friend Edgar Wakefield set me up to be taken by the City Watch, and you followed him.” Stride spits. “Took his orders. But you know what? I forgive you. All of you. I’m filled with love. But the following people each owe me a finger: Logan, Douglas, Bang-bang, Ferris, Pigface, the Bakers, and Annabelle.” A low “Shit,” underscores the last name, and he can practically feel her glee at the excuse when Stride says “ _ Two _ from you, Annabelle. Have a good night.”

Turning on her heel, she walks to where Daud is still leaning and says “That piece of garbage Edgar. I’m still living with his incompetence. He let the Hatters cripple the Undine.”

This is. Well.  _ Not  _ what Daud wanted to hear. Straightening, he drops his arms to his sides and says, carefully “The ship seems fine to me.” Lizzy shakes her head, minutely, and Daud can feel a vein above his eye start to twitch. “They took the engine coil. We’re dead in the water.” 

“What is it,” Daud says, then “can we make another?” Can they steal another? How quickly could his Whalers—“They don’t make them any more.” Stride says, hints of real distress adding an additional layer of disgust to her usually acerbic tone. “Not for an engine like the Undine’s. We’ll have to get it back.” We, of course being Daud. “The Geezer still leads the Hatter gang, right?” Daud says. “I’ll pay him a visit.” Stride shakes her head again, and Daud can feel the irritation rise in his chest. “It won’t be that easy,” she says. “there’s a snag.” Daud doesn’t bother sounding surprised. “Always is. What’s this one?” 

Shifting her weight onto her other foot, Stride says “The Geezer’s about a hundred years old by now. He’s got it rigged so that if he dies, the whole place gets gassed. So they’re real careful around him, got him a nurse and everything. Maybe you can cut a deal for that engine coil. Turn on the charm. One of the Hatters gave me their door password, in exchange for keeping the rest of his fingers. It’s Whalebone. I never got to use it on account of the gas. And being in jail.” It takes a deep breath and a stern reminder that Stride is his best bet for getting to Brigmore Manor to stop an acerbic reply of his own, and the only thing Daud trusts himself to say is “Just be ready to move when I get back.”

Now that the area is a neutral space, Daud leans on the Void, flaring his surroundings a sickly yellow. At once, his eyes flick to the brighter shade of a bone charm in the water, another in one of the storage sheds he’d thought derelict. Transversing to the rail of the Undine, he narrows his eyes at the two hagfish circling the spot, then loads his crossbow with the lethal ammunition, calmly sights and shoots the both of them. Then, taking a deep breath, he topples himself over the edge and kicks off towards the bottom. A corpse is curled ‘round the charm, but Daud hasn’t spent decades in the assassination business just to flinch from bodies, and he reaches out with  certain hands to snag the charm. Then, he closes his eyes and transverses to the top of the rowboat he’d seen from the Undine’s prow. 

The sensation of swapping from water to air is jarring, or maybe bracing, but either way all Daud does is sweep the rowboat prow to stern, then turn his sights towards the shore. Perhaps using the Outsider’s power in broad daylight isn’t the brightest move, but by this point Daud is well past caring. He’s at the docks almost before the exclamations at his disappearance have hit the air. Now that he’s on solid ground, he doesn’t bother with transversal, simply setting off towards the telltale itch in the air like a magnet that leads to the next rune. Is it polite to ransack his allies? Absolutely not. Is that going to stop him? In their dreams. 

He ducks under a tripwire and comes up face to face with a weeper. “Outsider’s crooked  _ cock _ ,” he barks, backpedalling straight through the tripwire. Instinct still lets him duck when he hears the telltale  _ snap _ , but the weeper isn’t as lucky, and Daud’s life once again is owed to happenstance.

Supposed happenstance, at least. There’s a hint of ghostly laughter in the air when his glove makes contact with the cursed Outsider’s remnant, laughter that only gets louder when he audibly snarls. Gritting his teeth so hard he thinks a molar might lose a chunk, he takes the most sarcastic bow he can manage, and exits the storage room. Once he’s out, he heads directly for the door back into Draper’s Ward proper. He’s already armed with the passcode; the rest  _ ought _ to be a piece of cake. He keeps wary just in case, takes the skyroute, transversing from building to building to building. It only takes a handful of minutes before he’s perched above two Hatters bickering around an arc pylon. It’s tempting to pretend he doesn't see the easily accessible powerbox, tempting to let out just the tiniest bit of temper that’s been thrumming under his skin for days now, ever since Billie’s betrayal; only the fact that he’s done so much of this cleanly that the momentum is strong behind him stays his hand. Savagely, he flips the ammunition in his wristbow to sleepdarts, takes sight, and takes them out with pinpoint precision, one after the other and quick as blinking.

He's at the control box before the second body hits the ground, transversal instinctive and marked with his trademark grace. He flips the box open and doesn't bother with care, simply slamming the hilt of his sword into the machinery until the threatening hum and crackle subsides into uneasy silence. Stock still, he waits and listens, checking for signs that his behaviour has been noticed as abnormal--he waits a minute, then another. All he hears are the occasional sounds of conflict sparking across the bridges outside, so after one final moment he lowers his sword and stands from his crouch.

Slipping a hand into his pocket to graze his fingers over a stun grenade he has stored for easy access, he saunters to the door separating him from Hatter territory, and slaps the intercom button. “What’s the password?” Crackles back at him in response, and his lips nearly tug up into a smile involuntarily. “Whalebone,” he says, and the door buzzes open.

Too easy.


End file.
